If you are reading this article, you have probably decided that you are
moving in the direction of getting divorced. Maybe the decision is
yours, maybe it is your spouse's, or maybe your reached the decision
mutually. The important certainty is that you are going to divorce, and
that now, you and your spouse have some very important decisions and
choices to make.

The choices concern the manner and process in which you will divorce.
Will it be bitter or civilized? Will you have an intense litigated
adversarial divorce, or will you have a cooperative, even amicable,
divorce? Will you attempt to vindicate the past or will you use your
resources to build your separate futures? Will your children suffer
emotionally or will you minimize the impact on them? Will your divorce
be a mess or will it be a transition to new and better lives for you
both? In other words, will you choose a good or a bad divorce?

Many people will argue that you do not possess such choices. It's a
matter of luck or chance they will tell you. They say to you that
divorce causes so much bad feelings and anger that there is no way to
keep it under control. It's just something that you have to survive and
if you're lucky, you will not be too hurt to badly or for too long by
it. On the other hand, it could ruin your life. However, healthy
divorce or unhealthy divorce is not a matter of luck. The outcome is
very much subject to the choices you are about to make. People, you are
in complete control.

Your divorce does not have to be a disaster. Painful as it, successful
divorce can help both of you to begin new lives that offer a second
chance at future successful relationships. There will be new many
relationships and new opportunities ahead. You can enhance these
opportunities or you can demolish them. You can use your economic and
emotional resources for the benefit of yourselves and your children or
you can squander them in battles in which, ultimately, you all lose.
You can help your children come out of this difficult period with two
whole and effective parents or you can turn them into emotional
cripples.

You will make these choices as a couple. Remember, until you are
successfully divorced, you are still a couple. Legal ties make you a
couple. Economic and emotional ties make you a couple. Do not believe
that because there is anger and distrust or sadness that you are not
emotionally connected. Fighting is often a way of staying together.
Some people remain connected through fighting for years after a divorce.

You are about to begin the final task of the marriage: negotiating a
decent and conclusive end of your relationship as husband and wife. How
well you perform this task in large part will determine how the divorce
turns out.

Divorce is a process, not an event. During the process of getting
unmarried you can choose to treat yourselves with derision. The
important thing about these choices is that you can only make them as a
couple. Couples get divorced, not individuals. One of you can choose an
unhealthy divorce; but only both of you can choose a healthy divorce.

If one of you engages in war, it is very difficult for the other not to
counter. In divorce, few partners turn the other cheek. One of you may
want an amicable divorce but may believe that the other is too angry or
too vindictive to make it feasible. This is a particularly trying time
because you are separated and single on one level, but still married and
together on the other. In this time of confused and mixed signals, it
is easy to offend each other.

You are neither clearly together nor clearly apart. If you were
capable of immeasurable participation, you would probably stay married.
But you are capable of confined cooperation, and this is enough to get
divorced decently. It is this residual capacity that enables you to
choose, as a couple, the manner in which to end your marriage.

Seemingly, it may be strange to talk about healthy divorce.
Historically, divorce has been viewed as socially deviant behavior and
therefore a bad thing. It is generally regarded as an unfortunate event
that leads to negative results like broken homes. Social attitudes have
altered substantially in the past twenty five years. Although few feel
that divorce is desirable in itself, we are witnessing a wide-range
reassessment of divorce, stemming partly from its pervasiveness. Half
of all marriages that occur this year will end in divorce. About 80
percent of the people who get divorced will remarry within the next 5
years, and about 60 percent of the second marriages will end in
divorce. This means that about half our population experiences one
divorce, and about a quarter will live through two. At this time,
divorce is no longer viewed as deviant behavior, it is slowly becoming
the norm.

I will not debate the pertinence of the term healthy divorce. What I
am talking about, and what I believe you as a couple can choose, is a
divorce that achieves legitimate and constructive goals for yourselves
and your children. A healthy divorce accomplishes three distinct
objectives:

A legal divorce that ends the marriage within a reasonable time of the
decision to divorce, without huge legal fees that drain the family's
finances, and with a minimum of animosity and battling.

An economic divorce that separated the marital partners into two
distinct economic units so that assets and income are fairly distributed
and economic sacrifice equally shared.

An emotional divorce that allows both partners to grieve the end of
the marriage so that each can move on to new relationships.
Appropriately completed, the emotional divorce leaves the former
partners capable of cooperating as parents, behaving decently and
respectfully toward each other, and embarking on new relationships
without destructive baggage from the previous marriage.

A healthy divorce requires completing all three of these objectives.
Naturally, all three are interrelated and each step affects the others.

To work toward a healthy divorce, it is imperative that you understand
the specifics that make divorces go bad. There are two related aspects
of a divorce that are unhealthy. The first is the nature of the divorce
process itself, and I will identify a few of the characteristics of the
legal system that when combined with the behavior of divorcing spouses,
produce hostile and bitter divorces. Second are the products of a
unhealthy divorce, mainly the settlement agreements that are unfair and
unworkable and the feelings of bitterness and injustice that emanate
from them. When you have a settlement agreement that is complete, it
is important that both of you feel and believe that it is fair. If this
is not the case, it will be arduous at best for you to get on with your
new and separate lives. Such feelings of abiding bitterness continue to
interfere with readjustment, growth, and new relationships. Flawed
settlements can bring you and your ex-spouse back into court again and
again so that the continuing battle contaminates and ruins your attempts
at putting you new life together.

From a statistical perspective, divorce is a disaster in America.
Approximately half of all fathers default entirely on their child
support obligations, while only a quarter pay their full obligation.
Average visitation between divorced fathers and their children is less
than once a month. Divorced women with children make up the fastest
growing segment of Americans living below the poverty level. The
statistics point to systematic shortcomings in the American approach to
divorce and should serve as a warning to any divorcing couple. There is
a true but terrible series of trade offs that occurs in the process of
divorce in America: The mother loses the money and gets the children.
The father gets more money, but for all practical purposes loses the
kids and, one might argue, a large part of himself. The children lose
at least one parent, and perhaps two, because the parent who is left is
frequently too tired and worried to meet their needs. This is not the
exception people, it is the norm.

The divorce disaster is a product of the feelings that escort divorce,
anger and vengeance, along with the legal system itself, which is based
on opposition, not cooperation. There is a terrible fit between the
needs of the divorcing family and the American legal system, so before
you allow yourself to become drawn into it, you need to understand how
if functions and why it functions the way that it does.

Texas divides marital property as community property. This means any property owned by either spouse during the marriage is community property between the spouses. The court also divides marital debt at this time and ownership is recognized the same way. However, property that is owned by either spouse before the marriage is considered separate property. In a case involving children, the Texas divorce court often divides the property unequally. An equal division of the community property is not required by the Texas divorce laws, were as some other community property states adhere more to the 50-50 split rule.

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